Hillcrest High grad wants to study in Germany and become mechanical engineer

AMMON — Finley Borgmann just graduated from Hillcrest High School and has a bright future ahead of him.

The 17-year-old has been a member of National Honor Society for three years and was the president of the scholastic team.

He has additionally been a part of a club called “Mock UN.”

“Every year, we get assigned a country and we prepare for a few months leading up to a big conference in Boise, where we go and act as a fake UN and represent our country,” Finley explained.

He said one year, the club was assigned Russia.

“I pretended to be a delegate of Russia — and this was during the war and everything — and it was a ton of fun,” he said. “This year, we got Albania which was also pretty cool because Albania is a cool country.”

Finley has been a part of the cross country team at Hillcrest High school and has enjoyed playing tennis, too.

“I ran cross country all four years and have been on varsity for the past three (years),” he said. “I like running and (having) people around. l (like) being able to talk to people on runs, plus pushing yourself feels good.”

Finley is a highly-motivated student. In fact, he graduated Hillcrest High School with 91 credits. Hillcrest High School Principal Tyrell Salsbery says students need 60 total credits to graduate. In the seven years Salsbery has been at the school, he said he hasn’t seen more than 82 credits.

“I took a bunch of classes online in summers before high school and I have taken a lot of credits here … DC (dual credit) and AP classes and those have more credits than usual, so with those two combined, I have more credits,” Finley said.

He is headed to Utah State University for college and wants to study mechanical engineering. Then, he has plans to get his masters degree.

“I am going to get my masters in either aerospace, or just more mechanical or electrical. I am going to do that back in my home country in Germany,” Finley said.

He and his brother were born in Germany so they both have dual citizenship. Finley says he’s visited Germany since living in Idaho and loves it.

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“I love how green it is. In Germany, it’s always nice and cool and green and I don’t mind the humidity there. I like the climate better,” he explained.

He said with mechanical engineering, he hopes to go into the forestry industry. He’d like to design machines that cut down trees and transports the logs.

“As a kid, I played Farming Simulator and that had some of those machines in it and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. But also, I like engineering and the process of making things and I also like trees and green so I thought, ‘What if I could combine those and do both?'” he said.

Finley is looking forward to the future as he starts his studies in college soon.